TOWN AND COUNTRY — A subsidiary of international consulting firm Accenture plans to open an advanced technology center, near Maryville University, expected to bring 1,400 jobs over five years.
Accenture Federal Services, led by CEO John Goodman, aims to open the office in an existing Town and Country building later this year. The firm works with federal government agencies on digital, cloud, automation, artificial intelligence and cyber solutions. Based in Arlington, Virginia, Accenture Federal Services has major offices in several locations around the country.
The center represents one of the largest jobs announcements in recent memory.
“Fourteen-hundred jobs at any time is a big deal, but especially coming out of an economic downturn,†said former St. Louis Economic Development Partnership CEO Denny Coleman, who led economic development efforts in the St. Louis County for 25 years.
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And it’s a huge win for AllianceSTL, a new economic development organization formed in 2019 to focus on attracting employers to the region. Its CEO, Steve Johnson, is the former head of the Missouri Partnership, also dedicated to attracting new employers at the state level.
It wasn’t clear how many of the new jobs would be local hires and how many the firm would relocate from other offices. Reliant on federal contracts, Accenture Federal Services could be more insulated from the pandemic-induced downturn than many companies.
The firm’s parent company, Accenture, is domiciled in Ireland and has an office in St. Louis’s Cortex tech district.
Officials are expected to formally announce the jobs at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Maryville University. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, Alliance board member and Graybar CEO Kathy Mazzarella, Congresswoman Ann Wagner, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page, and Rodney Crim, CEO and President of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, are all expected to attend.
The last major new jobs announcement for the region was in July, when payment processing firm Square said it would move its roughly 500-person St. Louis workforce downtown and possibly double it over several years. Also that month, Bayer said it would shift 500 jobs to Creve Coeur from other offices around the country as it consolidated operations following its purchase of longtime St. Louis company Monsanto.
